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Fresh

The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.

Rotten

The Tomatometer is below 60%.

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Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or
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AUDIENCE SCORE

Movie Info

Ishtar has taken on a life of its own, infamous for the $40-million production cost, with Director Elaine May being compared to Eric Von Stroheim in terms of legendary extravagance resulting in costly overruns. The movie was mercilessly panned and declared one of the biggest box-office disasters of the 1980s, though the feature is not that bad, just not as funny as it could have been. Lyle Rogers (Warren Beatty) and Chuck Clarke (Dustin Hoffman) are two hopelessly inept but forever hopeful New York tunesmiths. With the help of agent Marty Freed (Jack Weston), the two get a gig at the Chez Casablanca in Morocco. After their arrival, the duo is entangled in the political chaos that plagues the region. Lyle and Chuck try to write inspired songs -- that are hilariously bad -- but they never give up the hope of penning a hit. CIA agent Jim Harrison (Charles Grodin) recruits Chuck to work for the agency, while femme fatale Shirra Assel (Isabella Adjani) gets Lyle to help do her bidding. Chuck and Lyle wander aimlessly in the desert on a blind camel as they become the targets of an accelerated manhunt. International spies gather with vultures in hopes of catching the singing saps. There are shades of the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Road" films here, but the overall results are uneven. Coupled with the budget problems and the high public interest of a film with both Hoffman and Beatty, the feature was viewed at the time as a disaster -- as well as becoming a box-office flop. Compared to Kevin Costner's costly flop Waterworld, however, this film is much better on all levels.

It's a film that resists categorization, staking a claim on a weird, absurdist territory of its own. For that, in the maddeningly generic landscape of '80s multiplexes, it was crucified. Now it's celebrated. And rightfully so.

The 1980s saw the release of so many truly atrocious films (Xanadu, Stroker Ace, Bolero, Shanghai Surprise, etc.) that it's absurd "Ishtar" became shorthand for the worst of the worst and continues to be blasted by folks who haven't even seen it.

If Ishtar has a personal stamp, it's not in what it has to say about Reagan-era militarism, but in what it has to say about collaboration, and how well-meaning people can goose each other to greatness-and folly.

A victim of its own hyped publicity and too harsh criticism, Ishtar is not the worst movie ever made or even a bomb, just a dim-witted silly comedy-thriller (with some good jokes) based on the casting against type of Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman.